One hundred years ago this spring, pioneer aviator Glenn L. Martin fixed the world’s attention on the foothills communities during a two-day flight show in Pomona when he took off from what is today the Fairplex and reached 14,200 feet over Mount Baldy (Mount San Antonio) to break the world’s altitude record.

Yet for a region that is anchored today by the state-of-the-art Ontario International Airport as one of its most powerful economic engines, our region’s role in the history of aviation actually commenced with tales of wrong turns, crash landings, publicity stunts and colorful aviation pioneers.

In 1906, a steam-powered automobile bested a blimp in a car vs. airship race from Los Angeles to Pomona. Two years later, the first recorded flight in the region occurred when daredevil Harry Wright took off from a bonfire-powered hot air balloon in Ontario, floated up to 3,000 feet then parachuted to the ground in a publicity stunt to promote Ontario businesses.

Wright’s feat was followed that year by a twoballoon transcontinental race from Los Angeles to New York. The race ended when one of the balloons was blown off course and the second lifted off from Ontario and got no further than nearby Corona.

Yet 1911 proved to be the most interesting year for early flight in the region when two of early aviation’s most colorful pioneers made their marks in the region.

Didier Masson is remembered today as the French aviator who pioneered aerial bombing, serving as a mercenary for Revolutionary general Poncho Villa in 1913 where he unleashed pipe bombs on Mexican gunboats.

Two years earlier, Masson loaded 500 newspapers in his Bleriot Antoinette airplane at the United States’ first Aero Meet in Los Angeles for delivery in San Bernardino. He crashed once in Rancho Cucamonga, but got airborne again and made the historic delivery in 80 minutes.

Later that autumn, legendary American aviation pioneer Calbraith Perry “Cal” Rogers chose Pomona as his penultimate stop on America’s first transcontinental airplane journey. He crashed 19 times in the 49 days it took him to complete the trip.

Rogers already enjoyed notoriety as an auto racer and broke endurance and speed records over the summer when he accepted William Randolph Hearst’s $50,000 offer to span the continent by air. He flew the linen-covered, spruceframed Vin Fiz, which was named to promote a popular grape soda drink. Powered by a 35 horsepower engine, Rogers covered the 4,000 miles at an average 51 miles per hour in an open cockpit with nothing more than the sights of rail road tracks – known as the early aviator’s iron compass – to guide him.

By the time he reached Pomona, Rogers had crashed so often he had his leg in a cast and shrapnel from a blown cylinder in his arm.

By 1926, airplanes were commonplace, yet the biggest airfield in the region was a private landing strip on today’s W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Center founded by the inventor of the cornflake.